Tips to improve the tech interview process

You want the best person for the job; we get it. Who wouldn’t? But have you ever considered that the process you go through to ensure you get the best candidate might actually be putting the best ones off?

A post published on LinkedIn by a Software Engineer confirmed exactly that. Mike Conley removed himself after three rounds of interviews — it was his dream job, with a salary he wanted, so why? Because the tech company he was interviewing for had a further five rounds to schedule with him.

That’s nine interview rounds in total. But is this too excessive? The average interview process for tech roles, in our experience, seems to be three, including a tech test. 

So, how can you ensure you deliver the best interview process for software developers and other tech roles?

Make clear communication a priority, always

Interviews for technical roles are tricky; they’re time-consuming for candidates — they have to put a lot of work in and demonstrate their professional experience (particularly in the technical screening part). So they deserve to hear whether they were unsuccessful. Sounds obvious, right? But 65% of job seekers say they never or rarely receive a rejection notice from employers. 

And those candidates who didn’t receive notification from the employer were 3.5 times less likely to re-apply to the company. Not good. Clear communication breeds mutual respect. You need to consider the long game. The tech industry is thriving in The Netherlands and Germany, with tech communities everywhere. In Amsterdam alone, there are hundreds, including AmsterdamJS, Ladies that UX Amsterdam and DevOps Amsterdam. All three of these groups have thousands of members. If you get a bad review from one candidate, chances are it’ll spread like wildfire among these active communities.

So manage expectations, inform candidates of the process outright and personally thank every candidate for applying.

Make sure you’re consistent

Consistency is key to hiring the best candidates. If you don’t have a consistent interview process, you cannot judge all candidates on a level playing field. For example, let’s say some interview elements differ, such as using a different hiring manager — you aren’t able to analyse each candidate’s results side by side confidently.

Having a consistent, standardised process isn’t just helping you find the best-fit candidate; it’s also helping you work out which interview elements are good and which are just wasting time. 

You want to make your interview process sleek, efficient and effective, and you can’t do that if you don’t have a standardised process.

Use tech to automate large parts of your recruitment process

Technology can play a supporting role in your hiring process, making screening qualified candidates easier, quicker and unbiased. According to data [PDF], 80% of global employers are accelerating the automation of work processes in response to the pandemic.

Because of the pandemic, people lost jobs. And the unemployment rate increased from 3.4% in 2019 to 3.8% in 2020 in The Netherlands. Although the world is slowly adjusting to life with COVID, the unemployment predictions for 2021 and 2022 only continue to increase to 4.3% and 4.4%, respectively. 

This means that there’ll be more applications per vacancy.

So what processes can you automate? 

• Pre-screening of candidates. Make use of tools like CodinGame to screen candidates’ technical skills using fun, interactive games. Tools like these make the screening process much more efficient for both you and the candidate.
• Self-scheduling. You can give the candidates control over scheduling their own interviews. Using tools like Calendly puts the booking process in their hands so they can pick a time that suits them best and re-arrange easily if necessary.
• Candidate feedback surveys. Getting anonymous feedback from all your candidates is how you’ll build a better recruitment process from now on. Set up email automation to make candidate feedback part of your process and use tools like Typeform to create a unique survey link.

Don’t struggle to juggle your job vacancies. At Orange Quarter, our specialised consultants are here to help you fill those roles.

Let’s meet your growth goals.